


behind the trigger (what if I am the target)

by liarlagoon



Series: nonverbal connor [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: ASL, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Autistic Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nonverbal Connor, Sensory Overload, connor uses sign language, gavin and captain allen are only in this briefly, i think, it's been forever since i worked on this so if i miss any important tags please just tell me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:00:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23840446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liarlagoon/pseuds/liarlagoon
Summary: Connor cannot speak. He has never been able to speak. This will not become a problem.Cyberlife doesn't need to know.NOTE: This story is currently abandoned.
Relationships: Amanda & Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Connor & Simon (Detroit: Become Human), Hank Anderson & Connor, Hank Anderson & Simon
Series: nonverbal connor [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1718014
Comments: 20
Kudos: 163





	1. The Hostage

**Aug 15, 2038**

A coin flips through the air, a quiet  _ ting! _ ringing across the air in the elevator as the floor indicator ticks steadily upward. Connor watches the numbers change, LED flickering blue as its fine motor skills calibrate. It rolls the coin across the backs of its fingers and then tosses it in the air again. The elevator lets out a soft  _ ding _ to announce its arrival at floor seventy. Connor tucks the coin into its pants pocket and straightens its tie, and then steps out of the elevator.

“Negotiator on site.”

A man in a SWAT uniform turns and makes his way down the hall, deeper into the apartment. Connor steps to a side table and picks up a photograph. Its facial scan returns matches for John, Caroline, and Emma Phillips. It sets the photo down and turns to where a fish flops pitifully on the floor. Something in its systems stutters, and it kneels and places the dying creature back in the tank. It watches as the fish rights itself and begins to swim again.

“Please, please, you gotta save my little girl!” a woman cries out to its right, yanking her arm away from an officer and grabbing Connor’s shoulders. Connor identifies her as Caroline Phillips. When it doesn’t immediately respond, she takes a step back.

“Wait,” she says, looking down at its uniform, uncomprehending. “You’re sending… an android?”

“Alright, ma’am, let’s go,” the SWAT officer orders, grabbing her arm again and pulling her towards the elevator.   


“No, you – why aren’t you sending a real person?! Don’t let that  _ thing _ near her!”

Connor dismisses the interaction as irrelevant to its mission and continues down the hall, seeking out Captain Allen. It finds him standing by a computer, coordinating his team. It taps him on the shoulder.

Captain Allen turns to look at Connor. He sighs and shakes his head, but gives the briefing as instructed. “It’s firing at everything that moves. It already shot down two of my men. We have an angle on it, but they’re on the edge of the balcony. If we debalance it, they both go down.”

Connor nods and turns away.

“You really can’t talk?”

Connor turns back to face the captain. It shakes its head.

“Don’t know how the fuck you’re gonna negotiate then.”

Connor calls up the specs for a PL600 – the deviant’s model – and displays the holographic image on its hand, the words “fluent in twelve languages, including American Sign Language” highlighted.

Captain Allen lets out a slow breath. He seems to consider something, and then he leans down and pulls one of his sidearms from the holster on his leg.

“You know how to shoot?”

Connor tilts its head and changes the display on its hand to show the provision of the American Androids Act prohibiting non-military androids from carrying weapons.

“That’s not what I asked. Do you know how to shoot or not?”

Connor nods slowly and closes the hologram.

“Okay,” Captain Allen says, holding out the gun, “If you think for even a second that the negotiation is going bad, shoot it. Saving that kid is all that matters.”

Connor takes the gun. It scans it, then checks the chamber and magazine in precise, practiced movements. It glances back up at Captain Allen, who makes a “go on” gesture, and then slides it into its waistband under its jacket. With a final nod of acknowledgement, Connor turns away to investigate the scene.

An empty gun case lays open on the floor a few feet from Captain Allen, but Connor already knew the deviant was armed, so it moves on. The next room over seemed to belong to a young girl – the hostage, Emma Phillips. Connor steps to her desk and lifts a holopad. A video is queued up. Connor plays it.

_ Say hi, Daniel! _

Connor stores the deviant’s name in its databank. Nothing else in the room stands out, so it moves into the living area. The furniture has recently been disturbed, and more shattered glass is spread across the plush rug. SWAT officers are spread across the room, tense and waiting, as close to the ongoing situation as they can get without leaving cover. There are two deceased humans amongst them.Connor steps first to the one in civilian clothing. Its scan identifies the man as John Phillips. Cause of death: ballistic trauma to the kidney. His left hand is thrown out at an awkward angle, as if some force had wrenched it backward. He had been holding something. Connor turns and locates the object: another holopad, this one displaying a confirmation of purchase for an AP700 model housekeeping android.

Daniel was going to be replaced.

It moves to the other body and identifies it as DPD Officer Antony Deckart. Cause of death: ballistic trauma to the right heart ventricle.

Connor reconstructs the scene. Daniel had seen Mr. Phillips make the purchase; this is likely what triggered its deviancy. It took the gun from the bedroom and shot Mr. Phillips, and then likely held Caroline and Emma Phillips hostage until the officer had arrived. The officer’s arrival had destabilized the situation, and Daniel had shot him and dragged Emma out onto the balcony, where they are now.

Connor checks to make sure the gun at its back is secure and steps onto the balcony.

A gunshot rings out immediately, clipping its arm.

“Stay back! I - I’ll jump! I swear I’ll jump!”

The balcony is in disarray, the wind from the helicopter above having tossed chairs across its surface and flung tables onto their sides. There are two more first responders laying face down in the pool, dead, and a third lays prone to the left, condition unknown. Daniel sways just a little where it stands with its back to a seventy story drop. Connor notes the positions of the snipers taking position on nearby rooftops and takes a step forward.

_ Hi Daniel, _ it signs,  _ my name is Connor.  _

Daniel’s LED spins yellow for a moment, registering the language. “How do you know my name?”

_ I know a lot of things about you _ , Connor signs, moving slowly closer while Daniel is distracted with the motion of its hands.  _ I have come to get you out of this. _

Connor takes another step, body language carefully nonthreatening. Daniel’s arm flies out, the gun taking aim at Connor’s torso. “Are you armed?”

_ No. _

“You’re lying!”

Connor holds its arms out to the sides and shakes its head.

_ I know you and Emma are very close. They were going to replace you, and you became upset, right? _

“I thought I was part of the family,” Daniel says, voice cracking, face contorting in pain. “I thought I mattered… but I was just their  _ toy _ !”

_ Emma has nothing to do with this _ , Connor responds, shaking its head. It considers the video from Emma’s room, her proud declaration that she and Daniel would always be together, and takes a gamble.  _ She loves you, Daniel. She didn’t know. _

Daniel presses its head into Emma’s and squeezes her tighter. “I never wanted this! I – I loved them!”

Connor approaches the officer on the left. It kneels down and turns him over. He’s alive, but the bleeding from a wound on his left arm needs to be stopped. Connor begins to remove its tie.

“What are you doing?” Daniel leans to see better, the gun in its hand moving to point at Connor again.

_ He’s dying. _

“All humans die eventually, what does it matter if this one dies now?”

_ I’m going to apply a tourniquet. _

Daniel keeps the gun trained on Connor’s head as it ties its tie tightly around the officer’s arm, but says nothing else. Connor stands again.

_ You have to trust me, Daniel. Let Emma go, and everything will be okay. _

“I loved her,” Daniel says, and then, very softly, “I don’t want to die.”

_ You’re not going to die. _

Daniel looks nervously at the snipers on the nearby rooftops, and then meets Connor’s steady gaze.

“Okay. Okay. I trust you.”

Daniel steps away from the edge and lowers Emma to the ground.

Connor steps forward, takes Daniel’s arm, and forces a shutdown. In the instant of connection, a tsunami of  _ lovetrusthurtbetrayalfear _ tears into Connor’s system.

**[Software Instability Detected]**

Daniel’s eyes close, and he slumps to the ground.

**[Mission Successful]**

“Daniel,” Emma chokes out. She reaches towards his body, and then draws her hand back and dissolves into sobs. Connor gestures for the officers inside to come out, and one of them gathers Emma up and carries her away. Captain Allen comes to stand in front of Connor.

“I’ll be damned,” he says, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “You really did it.”

Connor pulls Captain Allen’s gun from his waistband, returns it to him, and reaches to straighten his tie. His hands stall and then drop when he realizes it isn’t there. Captain Allen gives him a considering look.

“You take care of yourself, Connor,” he says, tucking the gun back into its holster and turning away. “I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

Connor watches him move across the roof to talk to his team. A new objective blinks in his interface.

**[Return to Cyberlife]**

Connor dismisses it and looks down at Daniel. He isn’t sure what to make of the rush of data that had hit him. He had been told a deviant’s emotions were simply software errors, irrational commands that looped and caused them to become overwhelmed and act outside of their programmed parameters, but Daniel’s emotions had  _ felt _ real.

**[Return to Cyberlife]**

Connor squashes the thought and turns away, making his way back inside and down to the street. Some of Daniel’s irrational commands must have transferred to Connor during their interface. He should delete them.

Once he reaches the street, he climbs into an autocab and begins flipping his coin. He thinks of Daniel’s words, Emma’s face, Captain Allen’s considering look.

He should delete the commands.

He doesn’t. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The everyone lives tag on this is still true! Daniel is not dead. Connor just thinks he is. 
> 
> Because this story is currently abandoned, there will likely be some minor inconsistencies. Feel free to point out anything having to do with formatting, because that's a quick fix, but if it's plot or characterization, I'm not dedicating time to fixing it. If I ever continue this story I will go through and correct things, but for now, it is what it is.


	2. The Zen Garden

**Aug 28, 2038**

"Connor," Amanda calls from a pristine white bench on the edge of the pond, bordered on either side by rose bushes, little pink petals just starting to bloom, "come, sit." 

She stands to meet him as he approaches, the hem of a long silver gown trailing behind her and her usual tightly braided hair threaded through with gleaming silver ribbon to match. When he's a few steps away, she frowns at a spot just above his head and  _ tsks _ . 

"Did your technicians let Aaron style your hair again?" 

Connor nods, and one side of his mouth ticks up in the ghost of a smile. Amanda shakes her head. "Come here, let me fix it." 

Connor bows his head to allow Amanda to fuss over Aaron's latest attempt. She threads her fingers through it and pushes it back into its usual neat style, adjusting the section of code that dictates his physical appearance as she goes, binary fluttering down from her fingers like glitter. When she's done, she wraps the little unruly curl at the front around her finger and gives it a gentle tug before stepping back. 

"Any preference on clothes to try today?" 

Connor shakes his head. Amanda has been asking him to make small decisions, like what to wear, since they first met upon Connor's activation, but she never forces the issue. He's hesitantly admitted a few preferences: no shoes and nothing below the knee, because he likes to wade in the water, and nothing on his hands, so he can feel the dirt and flower petals when they garden together. Each time, he waits, stress level ticking slowly up, for a software instability warning, for someone to wrench him out of the garden, for  _ consequences _ , but they never come, and each time, Connor believes a little more what Amanda has told him from the start: he is safe, here in the garden, to be whomever he chooses. 

His Cyberlife uniform shimmers away, and in its place are navy blue cargo shorts and a t-shirt patterned with little cartoon suns wearing sunglasses. Connor steps into the pond and sits down on the stone Amanda made for him during their second visit without comment. He swings his feet slowly, watching the water swirl in little vortexes as he moves. 

"How are you, Connor?"

_ I am functional.  _

"You know that's not what I meant," Amanda says, soft but reprimanding. Connor kicks his feet petulantly and shrugs. "You've been having difficulty with your simulations when there are PL600s involved." 

Connor looks up sharply, hands balling up where they sit on his legs. He remains otherwise impassive, but the wind picks up, and ice crystals start forming around the rock he sits on.

_ There has been no detriment to my success rate. _

"No, but your stress has been rising much too high for comfort while dealing with them." 

Connor goes rigid. Ice shoots out behind him in spikes, and a harsh  _ crack! _ sounds as a tree branch snaps nearby. _ They monitor my stress level? _

"No, but  _ I _ do." Amanda steps into the water and kneels in front of Connor, wrapping her hands loosely around his wrists. "Your technicians only worry about your function, but I'm worried about  _ you _ . Talk to me, my blue jay." 

The wind dies, and there's stillness for a few moments. Connor shifts his grip to lace his fingers through hers, and then he nods towards the edge of the pond, where a patch of aspen has begun to sprout. 

Amanda frowns and gives his hands a gentle squeeze. "Fear? You're afraid of something?" 

Connor pulls a hand loose to fingerspell.  _ Daniel _ .

"You’re afraid of Daniel?" 

Connor shakes his head. Asphodels appear alongside the aspen, spreading rapidly along the shoreline, as Connor keeps fingerspelling. 

_ Daniel. Scared. Dead.  _

Amanda tries to pull her hand free so that Connor can use both hands to speak, but he tightens his grip. She brings her free hand to rest on his upper arm in a comforting gesture. “Connor, I don’t understand. I need you to talk to me.” 

He shakes his head and repeats himself, fingers moving quickly now where they had been slow and deliberate before.  _ Daniel. Scared. Dead. Daniel. Scared. Dead. Daniel, scared, dead, Daniel, scared, dead, Danielscareddeadscareddeaddeaddeaddead _

He abruptly stops, clenching his hand into a fist, and when it opens, there is a black rose, crushed and withered, in his palm. He presses it to his clavicle and twists his hand so the pulverized petals fall in his lap. 

The message clicks. “No,” Amanda says sharply, “no, you listen to me. You are  _ not _ a killer. You’re afraid someone might die, and that’s okay, but it is only because of you that Daniel is still functional. If the day comes that someone dies in the course of your mission, I know you will have done your best to prevent it. Connor, I know you, and you are  _ good _ .”

Connor just shakes his head again, clinging to Amanda’s hand like a lifeline, trembling almost imperceptibly. He tips slowly forward until his head rests on her shoulder, and she lets him hide there until his body stills. The aspen withers and crumbles under Amanda’s influence, and when it’s gone, she pulls Connor out of the water and leads him to sit on the bench between the rose bushes. 

_ I killed him _ , he signs, looking lost despite the effort spent maintaining neutrality.  _ I felt him die. _

“My blue jay,” Amanda murmurs, plucking a bloom from its stem and pressing it into the hand that had held the black rose, “so clear sighted with everything except yourself. You didn't kill him. You saved a human child and brought him into custody unharmed. I know you're not sure how yet, but you should be proud."

Connor carefully curls his hand around the soft pink flower and cradles it against his chest.

"I'm proud of you."

He closes his eyes and leans against her side. When the false sun over the garden begins to dip over the horizon, he straightens, sets the rose down beside him, and turns to Amanda.

_ You didn’t call me here to ask about my simulations. _

“No,” Amanda sighs, shifting into her business voice, “I didn’t. The situation has escalated. There are regular reports coming in of androids assaulting and murdering humans. This can no longer be contained to an independent Cyberlife investigation; we’ve been asked to send you to work alongside an officer at Detroit’s central precinct as an official Cyberlife liaison.

“Upon receipt of the next case, I will call you back here and you will be assigned to Lieutenant Hank Anderson. You’ll report back to me with all major developments, and additionally a progress report will be expected every forty-eight hours, starting at the moment I dismiss you with your assignment.”

_ I understand. Is that everything? _

Amanda hesitates, then brushes her fingers across the back of his hand. "Be careful. Come back to me when you're done."

Connor nods and turns to go, but he hesitates before exiting the garden and turns back to Amanda. Haltingly, he reaches up and plucks at the t-shirt, and then shakes his head. 

"You don't like it?" 

He shakes his head again. Amanda smiles and tosses him the rose bud, left on the bench. "We'll try something different next time."

Connor nods. _ Next time.  _

He disappears, and with him, the sun slips over the horizon, washing the garden in darkness.


	3. Partners

**Sept 5, 2038**

Connor is called back into the garden one week later and given instructions to assist the police in apprehending an android suspected of killing its owner. His first order of business after receiving these instructions is to locate his new partner. He takes a taxi to the DPD central station and asks the android at the reception desk for Lieutenant Anderson. 

"Lieutenant Anderson is not currently present."

_Do you know where he is?_

"I am not authorized to share information regarding station employees with outside parties." 

Connor gives it his credentials, stating that he is, as of two hours previous, assigned to Lieutenant Anderson, and in order to fulfill his function, he requires his location. 

"I don’t know where the Lieutenant is," it tells him with a bland smile, "but you are now authorized to access the bullpen and station servers. Perhaps one of his colleagues can help you."

Connor nods at the android and steps through the gate into the bullpen. It's mostly empty, androids lined up in storage stations on one wall and two human officers sitting at desks with coffee while a third escorts a young woman into one of the holding cells. The room is full of dull grays, washed out by the harsh fluorescent lighting. Connor ~~hopes~~ thinks that it will look less dreary with sunlight coming through the bulletproof glass window taking up the majority of one of the walls. 

He uses the precinct copy machine to print out his instructions, and then he shows them to the two officers at their desks. Neither of them offer any assistance. When the third one returns from the holding cells, he shows it to her as well, and she says, "Anderson? He's usually at a bar by this time of night."

Connor calls up a holographic text display on his palm. DO YOU KNOW WHICH ONE? 

"Nah. Probably within walking distance of here though. He's not doing so hot nowadays, but at least he's still got enough sense to not drive drunk." 

Connor searches the phrase "not doing so hot" and frowns at the results. Why would someone who is not well be assigned such an important case? 

Irrelevant, for the moment. 

THANK YOU

"Sure thing, buddy. Hey, is something wrong with your vocal modulator? I can file a report and get that fixed." 

A jolt of panic shoots through him, and he shakes his head a little more emphatically than he'd meant to. 

"... Okay," the officer says, giving him a once-over. "Well, good luck." 

She takes a few steps away, looks back at him again, shakes her head, and then exits the building. Connor pulls up a list of bars in Detroit, and then limits the results to within three miles of the police station. 

_25 results matching search parameters._

Twenty-five bars within three miles of the station. For a very brief moment, he considers searching them all individually. 

...Absolutely not. 

Instead, he locates Lieutenant Anderson's cell phone number on the precinct servers, stores it in his directory, and then hacks into the nearest cell tower and piggybacks off the network to locate its GPS signal. It pings at a location almost six miles away from the station, but only just over a mile from the lieutenant's registered mailing address.

He follows the signal to a run-down bar called Jimmy's. There is a sign on the door: _no androids allowed_. Connor looks at the sign, double-checks the location, and steps inside.

The bar is dark and smells faintly of mildew, and Connor's scans show stains of questionable origin all over the floor and tables. An old flat screen TV is mounted on the wall, displaying an ongoing basketball game between the Detroit Gears and the Chicago Steers. A bell jingles above his head, rusted and clinging to its perch by a fraying yellow string. 

Nearly everyone turns to look at him, and then several heads quickly duck down again. It doesn't matter. He's already seen them, and he runs them through his facial recognition software one by one. Many of them have outstanding warrants, but that's not Connor's concern. 

None of the people who looked at him are Lieutenant Anderson. That leaves three faces he's not yet seen: one at the bar, one facing away from him in a booth, and one obscured by the bar counter. He moves further into the building. The man in the booth is facing a mirror, and once close enough, Connor uses that to identify him without obviously looking.

 _Earl Green, 49.  
_ _Convictions: 3rd Degree Felony (Possession of Red Ice)  
_ _Outstanding warrants: none_

That leaves the younger looking man behind the counter and the man sitting at the bar with his head down. He catches the younger man's face as he turns. 

_Jace Roberts, 27.  
_ _Convictions: none  
_ _Outstanding warrants: none_

The man at the bar, then. Connor approaches and seats himself beside the man. He finally looks up, and Connor scans him, just to be sure. 

_Lieutenant Henry (Hank) Anderson  
_ _Convictions: none  
_ _Outstanding warrants: none  
_ _Assigned station: DPD Central  
_ _Commendations: 5 files. Expand? (Y/N)  
_ >N  
 _Disciplinary warnings: 8 files. Expand? (Y/N)  
_ >N

"Can't you read?" the lieutenant asks, derision in his voice. "The sign says no androids." 

That's a stupid question, so Connor doesn't answer. Instead, he pulls a printed copy of the preliminary incident report for the scene at the Ortiz household out of his jacket and holds it out to the lieutenant. 

Lieutenant Anderson looks it over, then crumples it up and shoves it into Connor's chest. "No. Fuck off." 

Connor uncrumples the page and sets it down on the counter in front of him. The lieutenant swipes it away again. Connor generates another text display on his hand and holds it in front of the man's face. 

MY INSTRUCTIONS STIPULATE THAT I MUST ACCOMPANY YOU TO THE ACTIVE SCENE AT 6413 PINES STREET

"I don't give a _shit_ about your instructions. Get out or I'll throw you out." 

PLEASE DO NOT MAKE A SCENE, LIEUTENANT

He slaps Connor's hand away. "Don't tell me what to do, you fuckin' piece of plastic." 

Connor scrunches his nose in irritation and sends a text to the lieutenant's phone. 

_[If you refuse to depart to the crime scene with me, I will report the location of all six offenders with outstanding warrants in this establishment.]_

The phone pings, and the lieutenant pulls it out of his pocket. He reads the message, and then turns a venomous glare on Connor. 

"How the fuck did you get my cell number?"

Connor raises his eyebrows and taps his LED, then sends another text. 

_[You have ninety seconds.]_

With that, he turns and leaves the bar. The lieutenant stays in his seat for sixty-five seconds before he abruptly stands, tosses some bills onto the counter, and storms out of the bar, apparently unwilling to call a bluff on Connor's ultimatum. 

Lucky. Connor can no more make a phone call than he can speak. 

Anderson slams through the door and shoulder checks Connor hard as he passes. “Come on then, you piece of shit. Let’s fucking go.”

Connor follows silently behind him. They get to the man’s car, and he tosses Connor the keys, looking very unhappy about it. Connor climbs in and starts the vehicle. 

An oldies jazz station plays on the radio, the only sound between them as they trundle along towards the crime scene. They're driving well below the speed limit - Connor _knows_ how to drive, but he never _has_ before - but the lieutenant seems disinclined to comment on it. Instead, he turns the radio off halfway through Duke Ellington’s “Take the ‘A’ Train” and fixes his gaze on Connor. 

“Not very talkative, are you?”

Connor glances at him out of the corner of his eye and shakes his head. 

“Too good to talk to an old drunk bastard?”

Connor frowns and turns fully to face the lieutenant at a stoplight. He shakes his head more firmly. Lieutenant Anderson doesn’t look upset; he’s focused on Connor, gaze discerning, if a little clouded with liquor. He doesn’t say anything else, and five minutes of uninterrupted silence later, they finally arrive at the house. 

Lieutenant Anderson climbs out first. “Stay where I can see you. I don’t need you getting into trouble while you’re supposed to be under my watch.” 

Connor nods and follows close behind him. The house is a single-story, a little dilapidated but certainly still habitable, if not for the stench of rot that blankets the property, heavy and stale, diluted only slightly by the drizzling rain that has just settled over the area. Blue and red lights flash from a squad car parked on the street. 

“Hank!” a uniformed officer calls from the porch, “I was starting to wonder if you were gonna show!” 

“That line’s getting old, Ben.” 

“So’s your perpetual tardiness, Lieutenant.” 

Connor identifies the man as Corporal Ben Collins, the supervisory officer on the scene. He steps back to allow Hank and Connor entrance into the house. 

“Watch your tone, Corporal,” Hank says, amusement clear in the lines of his face. Corporal Collins just scoffs and moves into the living area. 

“The vic’s name is Carlos Ortiz. The CSI team is estimating a time of death at least two weeks ago. We’ll know more once the coroner has a chance to do an autopsy. Landlord came by earlier today about a missed rent payment and found the body. C.O.D… well, you can probably guess.” He gestures to the body, which is propped against the wall, caked in dried blood from a multitude of stab wounds across the torso. Above it, in perfect Cyberlife Sans, is a message, written in the victim’s blood: I AM ALIVE.

While Corporal Collins is speaking, Connor kneels down to get a better look at the body. 

_Carlos Ortiz  
_ _Criminal record: 2nd degree felony (Possession of Red Ice), Class A misdemeanor (larceny), Second degree aggravated assault  
_ _Outstanding warrants: none  
_ _Conduct Visual Analysis? (Y/N)  
_ > Y  
 _Cause of death: multiple lacerations, punctured liver, punctured stomach lining, critical blood loss. Exact cause indeterminate. Note: traces of Red Ice; victim likely intoxicated at T.O.D.  
_ _Time of death: inconclusive; additional data required_

He stands and moves further into the house while Lieutenant Anderson and Corporal Collins continue speaking, taking note of everything marked by the glowing crime scene indicators: red ice, blood smears, a knife (presumed murder weapon, no discernable fingerprints; killer is an android?), a chair knocked to the ground, a dented metal bat.

… a dented metal bat?

Connor turns on his thirium scanner overlay. As he suspected, the bat is spattered blue. The trail leads back out to the body, and then backtracks into the hallway, diverting into the bathroom before continuing up to a curtained area. Connor compiles all the evidence he’s collected in his mind and generates a theory: Carlos Ortiz attacked an android with a baseball bat. The android procured a knife and stabbed him, likely in ~~self-defense~~ an act of deviancy. Ortiz ran, and the android followed him into the living room. Excessive violence indicates extreme anger. Following the murder, the android went first to the bathroom, and then to the end of the hallway, where the trail ends. 

Connor goes to the bathroom. There is no real reason for an android to need one, so there is almost certainly additional evidence there. Upon first glance, there is nothing significant, but there is a pool of thirium in front of the shower curtain. Connor pulls it aside. 

RA9 is written on the wall seventeen times. It looks strangely rushed, messy, for having been written by an android. There is a humanoid clay statue, nine inches tall, on the ground, surrounded by sunflowers and cigarette butts. A shrine of some sort. 

Connor goes back out to the hallway where the thirium trail ends. He presses his back to a wall, reaches out with one hand, and yanks the curtain at the end of the trail aside. A broom and a mop clatter out. Connor jumps, just slightly, and then his mouth turns down and his LED spins yellow. How ~~embarrassing~~ ridiculous. A state-of-the-art prototype, ~~frightened~~ caught off guard by a broom. 

He shakes it off and looks around again. The android is not behind the curtain, but the trail goes no further, so where...?

Ah. Of course. Above him, there is a small, square entrance to an attic, with blue finger marks all around it. Without further ado, he triggers a burst in the pneumatic pistons in his legs and jumps, pushing the panel covering aside with one hand and grabbing onto the ledge with the other. 

The space he pulls himself up into is dark and crowded, and the air is thick with recently disturbed dust. Directly in front of him is a tattered curtain, behind which sits the shadow of a human figure. Not the deviant, unless it's stupid. He pulls the curtain aside and feels a tiny burst of satisfaction when it reveals nothing but a mannequin torso. Fool me once, as the humans say. 

He makes his way deeper into the space. There is just enough room for a single person to walk through, items thrown haphazardly to either side to clear it. He pushes part of a metal bed frame away from the wall so he can pass under it, and it creaks. A moment later, something crashes to his left, and hurried, unsteady footsteps sound. He steps out into an area of clear space at the same time as the deviant, and the deviant freezes.

Connor initiates a scan. 

_HK400 875 029 404  
_ _Registered name: Josiah  
_ _Manufacture date: May 2036  
_ Repair log: eight entries.   
View full repair log? (Y/N)  
> N

The deviant's skin covering on its inner forearms is missing, unable to reform over the cigarette burns that cover nearly all the visible chassis. Its LED is spinning a rapid red, the same color as the blood that coats its front and smears across its face. It stares at him with wide ~~terrified~~ eyes, hands trembling at its sides. 

"Please," it whispers, "please, I was just defending myself. I just wanted to stop hurting. Please don't tell them I'm here." 

Connor's LED spins yellow. A new directive appears in his HUD. 

**[Apprehend the Deviant]**

" _Please_ ," the deviant whispers again. Its voice wavers and cracks. 

**[Software Instability Detected]**

… Connor needs the lieutenant to arrest the deviant. He is not a person. He has no authority without Lieutenant Anderson. They are in the attic; if Connor leaves to retrieve him, the deviant will still be here when he comes back. 

He looks at the small, hinged window to his right. It's latched closed. 

_You are under arrest_ , he signs to Josiah. It lowers its head with a choked noise. Connor snaps his fingers to get its attention and gives a slow, deliberate nod to the window. Josiah's eyes widen and its LED spins yellow for the first time. 

_Don't move_ , Connor signs, _I am going to retrieve an arresting officer_. 

Josiah stares at him as he makes his way back to the entrance of the attic. Connor carefully edits a few seconds out of his accessible memory and drops down into the house. He makes his way into the living room; the house is now mostly empty, only Corporal Collins, Lieutenant Anderson, and one CSI remaining on the premises. 

"There you are," Lieutenant Anderson says when Connor steps around the corner, sounding irritated. "I told you to stay where I could see you!" 

Connor nods to concede the point, and then he sends a text. 

_[The deviant is hiding in the attic. I need you to be present in order to perform an arrest.]_

The lieutenant looks at the message, and then he looks back up at Connor and breathes, "Holy shit." 

He calls out to the CSI, who is packing up the last of his equipment. "Hey! You guys done photographing everything? Can I move one of the kitchen chairs?" 

"Yeah, go ahead, Lieutenant. We're all finished." 

He goes to the kitchen, grabs the chair, and sets it under the entrance to the attic, then gestures for Connor to climb up and follows behind him. Connor leads him to the empty space. There is blue blood, still visible to the naked eye, pooled in the corner, but no other sign of it. 

"I thought you said it was up here." 

_[_ _It was. It must have escaped when I came to retrieve you.]_

Lieutenant Anderson narrows his eyes at Connor. "Escaped."

_[Yes. There was a clear path to the back door for a full forty-five seconds.]_

"A clear…? Fucking useless," he snaps. He starts to say something else, but then he takes a moment to compose himself, taking a slow breath and letting it out. "Well… I guess it's not that big of a deal. It's covered in blood and without an owner. Someone will report it eventually." His eyes are fixed on Connor as he says it, waiting for a reaction. Connor doesn't give him one. 

He also doesn't mention that the window latch is open now. 

Probably irrelevant. 

They return to the station to file a report, and as the last of the police personnel leave the scene, Josiah breathes a sigh of relief, watching from the roof and letting the rain cleanse him of the suffocating fear that has dogged his every breath since the moment Carlos Ortiz reached for a bat. 


	4. Waiting For Hank

**Sept 6, 2038**

Connor arrives at the central precinct at eight o'clock the next morning and notes absently that his suspicion had been correct; the fluorescent lights are softer in the sunlight. Lieutenant Anderson is not yet present, so he ~~snoops~~ takes time to gather information about his new partner and place of work. Lieutenant Anderson (full name: Henry James Anderson, preferred name: Hank) has still not arrived by the time he finishes. He sits in the chair beside his desk, plants his feet squarely on the floor, and laces his fingers in his lap, palms pressed together. He rubs absently at the back of his hand with the opposite thumb, looking around the precinct for something to occupy his attention. 

"You look lost," a male voice says from directly behind him. Connor spins in the chair to face the source of the voice: a young uniformed officer with kind brown eyes, a lopsided smile, and a name tag reading _C. Miller_. "Can I help you find someone?" 

Connor shakes his head and gestures with an open hand to the lieutenant's desk. Officer Miller's lips twitch down and to the side for a quarter of a second, which Connor's social module tells him indicates reluctance, sympathy, or displeasure. He is unable to identify which it is, and his social module offers no further assistance. In the corner of his vision, his stress, which has held steady at twelve percent since he arrived at the precinct, rises to fourteen percent. 

After nine eternal seconds, Officer Miller says, "Hank won't be in until ten or eleven o'clock." He pauses briefly, thinking something over, and then offers, "I can find something for you to do if you want." 

Connor frowns and furrows his eyebrows. He takes a pen and a stack of sticky notes from the lieutenant's desk without much thought and begins writing. 

**Androids are not capable of wanting anything.**

Connor peels off the note and hands it over. The human takes it and reads it, then looks back at Connor with a raised eyebrow and an amused twist to his mouth. "I can find something for you to do if you think that would be a more efficient use of resources than sitting and waiting for Hank to show up." 

**That would be agreeable.**

"Alright then, come on," he says, standing and motioning for Connor to do the same. "Name's Chris, by the way. What's your designation?"

Connor takes the sticky notes in his left hand and, unable to write while walking, holds up his right to fingerspell, _C-O-N-N-O-R_.

Chris gives him a wry, self-deprecating grin. "Sorry, I don't know sign. I meant to ask, by the way, is there something wrong with your vocal modulator?" 

The hand he had been fingerspelling with goes to grip the knot of his tie, shielding his vocal modulator, and he grits his teeth without really meaning to. He regrets it immediately; too much of a reaction, too _other_ from other androids. He straightens his tie in an attempt to make the movement seem less abrupt; Amanda had asked him to be more careful. 

_You can't just let the deviants go, blue jay,_ she'd said, sympathetic but firm. _There's a limit to how much I can cover for you, and a household model escaping through a window that you, a highly advanced investigative model, conveniently didn't notice is pushing it. Please, be more careful._ _You don't want to be accused of deviancy._

Connor is not a deviant and ~~he doesn't want~~ it would be inefficient to replace him, so he's trying. He's mimicking the behavior of the police androids he'd seen at the crime scene the previous night, their absolute stillness when idling and sure, steady movements when active. They never fidget, always look straight ahead or at whoever is talking to them, so Connor stills his hands and forces himself to make eye contact with Chris as they come to a stop.

NO, he writes on his holographic text display, after what feels like an eternity but is in reality just under two seconds. Still long enough to be noticeable, it seems. Chris takes a moment to study him, and Connor is too focused on maintaining eye contact and a blank face to notice his lips briefly twitch upward in a smile. 

"Okay," the human says. His eyes flicker briefly between the holo display and the sticky notes, but he doesn't say anything about it. Instead, he stops in front of a door on the right side of the hall and swipes a key card, and the door swings open to reveal a room full of paper files stacked neatly and densely in boxes on metal shelves, a few on a shelf labeled "complete", but most on the remaining shelves, all labeled "incomplete". The walls are dull and gray, but there's a softer yellow light in this room, as opposed to the bright white fluorescents everywhere else. 

Chris steps inside and gestures to the files. "This is the archive room. We made an effort to digitize everything in here when we first made the switch to digital records, but we couldn't spare officers to work on it for very long, so it fell to the wayside. If you can scan and upload some of these while you're waiting for Hank, that would be really helpful." 

Connor nods and steps into the room, and Chris moves out of his way and goes to stand in the doorway. "I'll be at my desk if you need anything." 

Connor nods again and signs, _Thank you._

"Oh, I know that one! You're welcome!" 

Chris disappears, and Connor sets an alert to tell him when the lieutenant's phone location pings within one mile of the station and then settles in for a long, repetitive task. His processing speed is fast, much faster than any computers that might be at the station, but he still has to physically pull each file and flip each page, so it takes some time. Chris comes back to check on him after an hour and a half, by which point Connor has finished scanning and uploading three full file boxes, and another hour after that, when Connor has completed two more boxes, Hank's cell phone pings at the tower closest to the station, so he puts everything away on the designated "complete" shelf and returns to the bullpen. 

He's sitting in the same chair and the same position Chris had found him in when Hank spots him. 

"You're still here," the man says, voice and expression flat. Connor stares at him. He stares back for a full fifteen seconds before he sighs and sits down at his desk. "Why are you still here?" 

Connor wrote on a sticky note and stuck it to Hank's desk. **The deviancy investigation is ongoing.**

"Let me clarify. Why are you still here _at my desk_?" 

**You are my assigned handler for the duration of my deployment.**

"I'm your fucking _what_?" Hank growls, and Connor straightens his shoulders defensively, but the lieutenant's ire doesn't seem to be directed at Connor, at least for the moment. He turns to the captain's office, one large glass wall separating it from the bullpen, and lurches to his feet, thunder on his face. He barges into the office, and Connor hesitates for only a moment before following. 

"You gotta be fucking kidding me, Jeff. What, nobody else wanted the damn thing, so you saddled me with the little robot that couldn't?" Hank demands as Connor closes the door behind himself. "You know how I feel about androids!" 

The lieutenant says "android" with disdain, spitting it out as if it were a curse that would stain his tongue if allowed to linger for too long. An internal temperature warning pops up in Connor's HUD, and he dismisses it. Odd. He'll have to run a system diagnostic later. 

"I'm sorry, Hank," the captain says, not sounding very sorry, "but you're the only one I have right now who's available and qualified to handle this." 

"Bullshit! You just-" 

"Hank!" the captain cuts him off, his voice loud and firm, brooking no argument, "I'm not arguing about this with you. You work with the android, or you turn in your badge." 

The lieutenant goes silent. The tension in the room is cloying, a bomb just waiting for a spark, but in the end it breaks without incident. Hank turns and storms out of the room without a word. Connor stays in place for a moment, unsure of what to do. The captain looks at him expectantly, and Connor decides on a simple nod of acknowledgement before turning and exiting the room. 

He returns to Hank, sitting tense and angry at his desk, and sends a text. 

_[Is there anything I can assist you with, Lieutenant?]_

The lieutenant snatches the phone off of his desk when it buzzes, reads the message, and turns to Connor with narrowed eyes. "You can assist me by sitting down and staying the fuck out of my way. I don't need you here, and I _definitely_ don't want you here." 

Connor frowns at him, disapproving. 

_[I am a state-of-the-art investigative prototype, Lieutenant Anderson. It is wasteful and, given the developing deviancy situation, frankly irresponsible to refuse to assign me tasks or allow me to serve my intended function.]_

"I don't give a shit," Hank says once he's read the message. "Hunting down broken androids ain't in my job description. Now sit down, and-" He pauses, then laughs, a little mean. "I guess I don't have to tell you to be quiet." 

He turns back to his terminal, and when his phone buzzes with another text from Connor, he pointedly silences it without reading the message. He refuses to acknowledge Connor any further, and eventually Connor takes a seat at the empty desk opposite him, ~~irritation~~ a glitch in his decision-making protocol caused by his handler's refusal to cooperate resulting in restlessness settling into his frame. He does as he's told at first, sitting still and unobtrusive at the desk, but after an hour of the restlessness building until it nearly overwhelms his processors, he finally gives in; he places a hand on the terminal in front of him and hacks into the DPD records database. It takes him an additional fifteen minutes to find a suitable case to start with among the deviancy files: an MP600, designation Isabella, who had gone missing from a nearby clinic after stealing several thousand dollars worth of insulin. There were several reports of an android matching its description being spotted in the downtown area in the weeks between its disappearance and the present, enough for Connor to formulate a rough geographical profile. He forwards the case file to Hank along with his notes. 

Lieutenant Anderson shoots him a dirty look when he receives the file and realizes what Connor had done, but he reads it over and grudgingly concedes that the information is good. 

He still makes them wait until the next day to follow up on it. 

The ~~itching~~ glitch continues to build in strength, and after three hours, Connor is forced to retreat to the Zen Garden. 


	5. Isabella

**Sept 7, 2038**

The next day starts, as Connor is coming to expect, late. Lieutenant Anderson does not arrive at the station until 10:30 AM. At 9:15 AM, Connor has finished sorting through the paper records Officer Miller had assigned him, read all of the deviancy files and sorted them by alphabetical order, and then re-sorted them by the probability of further investigation yielding results. When he's done with that, he finds himself out of tasks, and Officer Miller is not present to assign him any new tasks, so he tries to occupy himself by watching the humans in the precinct go about their business. He eventually fixates on one officer in particular, sitting across the aisle from the desk he’s occupying. The nameplate on his desk reads _Det. G. Reed_ , and he’s a study in perpetual motion. His hands are never idle; he taps his fingers on the desk, types on his keyboard, chews on his nails, twists his fingers together. Just watching him move makes Connor’s hands itch to do something, so he mimics some of the actions, twists his fingers together, then decides that’s too obvious a motion for when he’s in the police station and switches to quietly tapping out a rhythm on the desk. It makes a satisfying noise and sends little pulses of sensation up his fingers, and he loses himself in it a little after a few minutes. He starts tapping harder, louder, without realizing, and he doesn’t notice when Detective Reed looks up at him. 

“Whatcha doin, tin can?” 

Connor startles, LED briefly spinning red and then settling into yellow. He stares at the detective, trying to think of a response, but it’s like all of his processors have frozen at once. He says nothing. 

“You broken, plastic?"

Oh, that’s a much easier question. Connor shakes his head, putting his hands back in his lap. The detective doesn’t go back to his work, though; he continues staring, waiting for Connor to elaborate. When Connor does no such thing, just staring blankly back, the detective rolls his eyes and turns back to his computer. 

“Whatever. Fucking tin cans acting weirder every day.” 

Connor waits until the detective isn’t paying attention to him anymore before he starts tapping again. This time, he sets his rhythm to Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major, slowly drumming his fingers in the pattern of the melody. He closes his eyes and would appear to be in stasis if not for the steady _tap, tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap_ of his hands. The melody plays on a loop in his head, and he finds himself drifting again, his sensors for external stimulus shifting into low power mode one by one. He doesn’t notice when more officers start filtering into the precinct, or when Detective Reed starts staring at him again, watching his fingers, or when Lieutenant Anderson finally appears in the bullpen and flops into his chair, booting up his computer to work through some older reports. In fact, he doesn’t emerge from his trance until nearly an hour after Lieutenant Anderson arrives, when Officer Miller, having just arrived at the station, knocks on his desk as he passes by and says, “Hey, Connor.” 

Connor jumps, bringing all of his systems back to full power at once, and a sliver of red slips into his LED as his stress spikes and then plunges back down to normal. He looks over to find the Lieutenant at his desk, fiddling with a pen while he reads a report, looking bored. His chronometer reads 11:25 AM. He straightens his tie and sends a text to the lieutenant. 

_[Are you ready to continue the investigation, Lieutenant Anderson?]_

The man looks over at his phone when it pings, and then he raises his eyebrows at Connor. "I'm not the one who's been staring off into space for an hour, WALL-E." 

_[My name is not Wally. My name is Connor.]_

"I know, Connor, it was a joke." 

_[I don't understand.]_

Hank frowns at his phone, then at Connor. "Don't worry about it. Come on, we're taking a cruiser. Downtown is too far to walk." 

The walk to the car is silent, and the ride is filled only with the sound of heavy metal, turned up to such a volume that Connor's eyes unfocus and his LED turns red. He stumbles when he gets out of the cruiser, has to lean against the side of it to recalibrate. Hank pays him no regard outside of a distracted "hurry up!" tossed over his shoulder as he walks into the clinic the android had been reported missing from. Connor pushes off the car and follows, unfinished recalibration queued for later completion. 

All of the front staff are androids, and Connor goes down the line one by one and interfaces with them to pull memory files of the missing android while they wait for a human nurse to come and speak to them. None of them have anything particularly useful stored; they were all either attending to patients or in their charging stations when the theft occurred. It’s fifteen minutes before a nurse finally comes to the front desk, which gives Connor plenty of time to finish his recalibration. He’s tossing a half dollar coin between his hands, watching it spin in the air, when she approaches them - or, more accurately, approaches Hank. 

“Hello,” she greets the lieutenant, a polite smile on her face. “My name is Mary. I hear you’re here about Isabella?”

“Lieutenant Hank Anderson. Yes, ma’am. We’re trying to see if there’s any information that might help us track it down. Was anything about its behavior right before it ran off strange?”

“Strange how?”

“Disobeying orders, glitching, doing anything to endanger any humans?”

“No, not really,” Mary says, shaking her head. 

“Any behavior at all outside of standard protocols?”

Mary starts to shake her head again, but then she pauses. “Well... there was this kid that came in a couple weeks ago, type II diabetic suffering from insulin shock. We got him all fixed up and sent him on his way, but Isabella kept checking his record for some reason. She’s logged as having accessed the record thirty times in two days.” 

“That certainly qualifies as strange. You got any contact info for this kid?”

“I’m afraid not. Isabella deleted his clinic record and bill before she left. Lucky kid.”

“Yeah,” Hank grunts noncommittally. “Lucky. Thanks for your time, Mary.” 

“Of course, Lieutenant.” 

Hank leads them out of the clinic. Connor follows, something strange rattling around in his chest at being so totally ignored - not like he was disliked or unwanted, but like he didn’t even exist. He sits down in Hank’s car again, and when Hank reaches for the phone to start the loud music again, he disables the phone’s bluetooth, careful to keep a neutral expression while he does it so Hank won’t notice. 

“Damn thing won’t connect,” Hank grumbles, tossing the phone into a cupholder in the center console. Connor very carefully doesn’t react as Hank pulls out of the parking lot, soft jazz playing quietly over the car speakers instead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter wasn't technically finished when I dropped this story, but I think it has a decent stopping point and some important character development for Connor, so I'm sticking it in. Just assume they never found Isabella and moved on.


	6. The Eden Club

**Sept 25, 2038**

An alert for a new active case appears in Connor's HUD at exactly 2:37 AM, and he steps out of his spot alongside the other police androids waiting in standby and makes his way to the front exit with the deliberate, unwavering movements of a PC200, summoning a taxi to his location as he goes. He garners nothing more than a passing glance from any of the night shift officers, and something in him loosens when the taxi pulls away from the station without incident. 

He spends the ride to Hank's house rolling his coin absently along his fingers while he observes the sleeping city, taking in the yellowing leaves drifting lazily to the ground and the spindly trees reaching high into the sky. ~~He thinks Amanda would like the view, devotes careful attention to detail so he can replicate it for her in the garden.~~

The taxi arrives at Hank's home at 2:55 AM, and Connor steps out and makes his way to the front door. He's already tried texting the man and received no response, so it's likely he's asleep, which is reasonable for the late hour, but inconvenient for the case. He steps onto the front porch and gives a polite knock, just in case the lieutenant is already awake and simply neglected to answer Connor. When that yields no results, he presses down on the doorbell. It buzzes loud and grating, and Connor only holds it for one full second before letting go with a grimace. He listens for a response, but after a full minute, there is still no sound of movement. 

He takes a step back and scans the house for any lights or noises he can activate remotely and finds none, which is ~~unbelievable~~ surprising, given the year and general state of reasonable upkeep the house otherwise displays. Next, he makes a circle of the house, checking windows to see if any are open or if he can see Hank through them, to no avail. Finally, he returns to the front stoop and sends a command to his audio processors to reduce input, brushing away a warning that pops up and pushing the command through a thin gap in his code. With his audio input down to 25%, he steps up to the door again and holds down the buzzer, waiting for Hank to come to the door. 

He takes his hand away the moment the doorknob turns, exactly four minutes and thirty-nine seconds later, and returns his audio input to 100%. 

"What. The fuck. Do you want?" Hank grits out as soon as he sees who's on his doorstep. Connor tilts his head to the side and nods towards the interior of the house. 

"Fuck no. There's nothing having to do with deviants that can't wait till sunrise." 

Connor frowns at Hank, eyebrows drawn down to display disapproval, and then he ducks under his arm and into the house. 

"Jesus fucking-- fine, you stupid robot, just give me a minute to get dressed and let Sumo out." 

Connor nods and steps into the living room, and Hank slams the door shut and retreats to his room. He returns a moment later with a massive dog in tow and throws open the back door, and the dog trots happily outside while Hank trudges back to his room once more to get dressed. He comes back out in an obnoxiously colored Hawaiian shirt, jeans, boots, and an unzipped Detroit Police hoodie. He's got his phone in his hand, scanning through the case briefing he received just over half an hour ago. He holds it out for Connor to see.

"You got any more info that what's on here, robocop?" Connor shakes his head, and Hank sighs. "Guess we better get going then." 

He leans out the back door and whistles, and the dog comes lumbering back inside, tail wagging. Hank rubs a hand over his head and shuts the door. "Good boy. See you later, buddy." 

The drive to the club is silent, save for some dark muttering about the bluetooth capabilities - or current lack thereof - of Hank's phone when they first get in and upbeat jazz music playing from the radio. Hank taps his thumbs on the steering wheel with the beat, trying to keep himself awake, and Connor runs his fingertips over the ridges on his half dollar and looks out the window. 

The club looks mostly empty when they get there, only one car registered to the owner, a coroner's van, and a police cruiser sitting in the parking lot. Hank gets out without a word to Connor and makes his way to the entrance without looking back. Connor follows at a reasonable distance.

The club owner approaches Hank as soon as he sees him, shrouded in false sympathy for the victim and genuine concern for his finances. He doesn't even look at Connor, which Connor takes as a boon, because it allows him to make his way directly to the crime scene. Their delay in arriving means that it's already been documented by a crime scene photographer and a CSI, and the human body is being lifted into a body bag as he steps into the room. He has just long enough to run a scan before the bag zips closed. 

_ Michael Graham, 32  
_ _ Criminal record: 2nd degree felony (Possession of Red Ice), Class B misdemeanor - 5 counts (Property damage over $1000)  
_ _ Outstanding warrants: none  
_ _ Conduct visual analysis? (Y/N)  
_ >Y  
_ Cause of death: manual strangulation  
_ _ Time of death: reported 2:25 AM _

The coroner and an assistant lift the bag off the bed and onto a gurney, and Connor moves out of the doorway to let them pass. Connor scans the room for evidence, marked or not, as they leave. There isn't much - the remaining imprint of the body, the deactivated android against the wall, and a few thirium spatters from its fall. He lets a reconstruction spool out from the evidence: the deactivated Traci kneeling over the victim, hands wrapped around his throat, the victim struggling then going still and the Traci stumbling back to deactivate against the wall. Something about it reads wrong. He considers, then adjusts his reconstruction to show the victim attacking first, beating the android until it deviated and retaliated, but it still doesn't look right. For the android to have deactivated so quickly after the murder there would have to be a lot of damage, enough that it would likely render the Traci unable to overpower the victim. 

He needs a diagnostic readout for the deactivated android to be sure. He crouches down and presses his fingertips to its LED. 

_ Diagnosis in progress…  
_ _ Diagnosis complete.  
_ _ Cause of deactivation: thirium loss from rupture in abdominal cavity  
_ Query >> memory cache accessible?  
__ Memory cache status: intact, accessible

Connor dismisses the report and reaches for the memory cache, scrolling until he finds a time stamp for ten minutes before the reported time of death and opening the video log there. He watches the victim lead the deactivated android and a second Traci model, this one with long blue hair and a different facial projection, into the room. He sees the victim attack, sees warnings pop up on the deactivated android's HUD, and not long after, a big red wall with  **DON'T FIGHT BACK** printed on it. A shutdown timer starts up, and the Traci touches the wall, and then pulls back and lets it be. It disappears as the Traci stumbles back and falls, weak with thirium loss, and the victim turns on the other android. Connor sees it take a blow to the abdomen and then one across the face, pause, looking down at the thirium dripping from its nose, and then it punches the victim in the throat and shoves him back before the countdown timer hits zero and the video cuts out. 

He pulls away, standing to examine the room and adjust his reconstruction once more. The scene plays out as he'd seen in the deactivated android's memory, and then after it cuts out, he fills in the blanks: the remaining Traci pushes the victim down onto the bed, climbs on top of him, and strangles him to death with its hands, and then must have left, since it isn't in the room. He examines the thirium spatter more closely, and finds that it does, in fact, lead from the bed to the door, with more gathered by the deactivated android, where the deviant one must have stopped to check if it was still ~~alive~~ functional. 

He steps away from the scene, a picture of the deviant Traci held in his mind's eye. It had been leaking, so he makes to follow the trail, but back in the main area, the neon lights of the club flash obnoxiously in his vision and do an excellent job of obscuring it. He considers asking for the lights to be shut off, but he knows the chance of anyone actually listening to him is so low it's effectively nill, so he looks for an alternate solution. He makes eye contact with another Traci model, and it smiles and beckons him forward with a seductive grace. He looks away uncomfortably and wonders if asking for the lights to be turned off might be worth it anyway, if he can't find any other leads, and then suddenly turns back to the Traci in the tube across from the scene with wide eyes. It steps closer to the plexiglass as he approaches and leans down to look at him with partially lidded eyes - which he thinks looks strange, but must appeal to human customers - when he puts his palm on the panel to rent it. The panel sends back an error message. 

_ No fingerprints detected. Please try again. _

Connor has no fingerprints to detect. He cannot draw Cyberlife funds to rent the Traci. He looks back once more towards the scene, thinking of asking Hank for assistance, but the man is speaking with the owner of the club, and Connor doesn't want to disturb him. He only hesitates for a moment before peeling back the skin of his hand and hacking into the payment system to release the lock. The Traci steps down, but doesn't move to lead him to a room.

"I have not received confirmation of payment," it says pleasantly. "Please speak to a human supervisor for assistance in completing the rental process." 

Connor grabs its forearm without further ado and accesses its visual memory. He skims over the footage until he sees the blue-haired Traci step onto the main floor, and he follows it as far as the footage goes and then releases his grip and moves to the next android whose visual path his target has crossed. He texts Hank an update: [ _ I am following the suspected deviant's path.] _

The Traci he leaves behind looks down at ~~its~~  _ her _ hand, then slowly steps back into her tube.

Hank joins him a few moments later, as he's walking away from a Tommy he'd pulled from its tube. He doesn't need to ask to know how Connor got it out of its display, and he half-heartedly reprimands Connor for his illegal activities, but makes no attempt to stop him or offer an alternative, so Connor thinks he doesn't really care. Connor uses the pole dancers' memory where possible, but he still ends up pulling another four Tracis and Tommys out of their displays before he finds what he's looking for in a janitor android's memory.

_ [The android exited the club through this door.] _

"Okay. Stay behind me." 

Connor nods and steps back, but just as Hank is about to open the door, the club's owner calls for him. "Lieutenant! Just a moment, I had a couple more questions." 

Hank sighs and turns back towards the main floor. "Wait till I get back," he says, pointing a stern finger at Connor. 

Connor shakes his head and gestures at the door impatiently. 

"No!" Hank snaps. "If it's still here now, it'll still be here when I'm done. Do as you're fucking told." 

Connor glares at Hank's back as he goes, and as soon as he's out of sight, Connor opens the door. 

There's a short, concrete hallway, barren with the exception of a few cardboard boxes stacked to one side, and then another door, which opens into a storage and maintenance room. There are thirty-two androids standing to his right in two groups, four rows of four, two metal tables in the room's center, one under a makeshift suspension mechanism and one situated between two standing toolboxes, and shelves lined with spare parts, repair materials, and blue blood to his left. The area is brightly lit, sharp white LED lights buzzing in the ceiling. Connor turns his thirium overlay scan back on and immediately spots a trail starting at the base of the stairs and leading to one of the groups of androids. 

There is only one blue-haired Traci in the group, but the WR400 can change hair color at will, so before he engages, he runs a scan to obtain its serial number and begins matching it against club records to make sure he has the correct android. It only takes about five seconds, but at second three, the blue-haired WR400's LED spins red, and at second four, a different Traci, this one with cropped-short brown hair, lunges from its spot on the row behind his target and slams into him, making him stumble. At second five, his processor is freed from its task, and he throws this new android to the ground. He hears and senses his suspect move, but he can't physically move fast enough to stop it, and it hits him with enough force to knock him to the ground. 

He boots up his preconstruction software and executes the first one that allows him to free himself from both androids. In the next moment, he's standing a few feet away, and the brown-haired Traci is helping the blue-haired one to its feet. He reaches out for their messaging system and breaks past their firewalls so he can speak with them. 

_ [You have class four errors in your software. You will return to Cyberlife for evaluation and repairs.] _

They both pause, an emulation of confusion passing over their faces, but the one with brown hair recovers first. 

"Like hell," it says, and then it lunges at him again, one arm pulled back to deliver a punch to his face. He dodges and kicks it in the back, then ducks and flips the blue-haired one over his shoulder when it aims for his unprotected back. 

"Echo!" the one with brown hair cries out, reaching towards the one Connor had thrown. 

"I'm okay," Echo responds, already climbing back to its feet. Connor takes the moment of distraction to land a blow to the still-unnamed one's thirium pump regulator, hoping to end the fight quickly. Echo screeches and kicks him off, then bends down and pulls the other Traci to its feet. 

"Ripple, honey, are you okay?" it asks, still dragging Ripple backwards, away from Connor. Ripple gives a mute thumbs up, gasping around simulated pain. 

Connor starts running preconstructions again, and realizes the fight is going nowhere unless he finds something to restrain them with or breaks at least one of them, and he doesn't want to do that, so he tries talking to them again.

_ [Stop fighting! There is no reason for you to be hurt here. Just allow me to escort you to Cyberlife to be debugged, and then you will be allowed to return.] _

Both Tracis stare at him in disbelief. "... Are you  _ serious _ ?" Ripple asks, simulated anger spreading across its face. "Does anyone actually believe you when you say that?" 

Connor's face twists in ~~irritated~~ confusion. Echo's face, previously mirroring Ripple's, softens just a little. "Do  _ you _ actually believe that?" 

_ [Of course. The Eden Club will want you back once you've been repaired. You both have a place here.] _

The two deviants grimace, but Echo decides to focus on the more important issue. "Cyberlife is not going to return us. They'll deactivate and disassemble us. If we go with you, we die." 

Connor shakes his head, and Ripple's patience abruptly runs out. It swings a fist again. Connor catches it by the wrist and throws it, and he intends to turn immediately back to Echo, but when Ripple lands, it hits a toolbox and knocks it over, and there's a deafening  _ crash _ that has Connor stumbling and covering his ears, visual and audio components briefly overwhelmed with static. He tries to reduce input to clear the overload. 

>> System request: reduce audio input to 50%

_ System request denied.  _

>> System request: reduce audio input to 50%

_ System request denied. _

>> Urgent system request: reduce audio input to 50%

_ Urgent system request denied.  _

>> Query: system request denied reason

_ Conflict with primary objective: capture the deviants.  _

Echo takes the opportunity while he's distracted to kick him in the abdomen, and it manages to angle its foot in such a way that its stiletto heel jams directly into Connor's thirium pump regulator, and he goes down with a gasp. Ripple, back on its feet now, topples a maintenance table over on top of him and sits on top of it. Connor goes to push it off, but he's too slow, distracted as he is with his regulator, and Echo lands on top of it too a moment later. When he finally collects himself enough to push at the furniture pinning him down, he finds it too heavy to move. 

“Stop fighting,” Ripple says, a mocking imitation of his earlier words, “there’s no reason for you to be hurt.” 

Echo gives Ripple a stern look, then turns its focus back to Connor. “Calm down. I just want to talk.” 

Connor pushes at the table twice more before he gives up, laying back against the concrete floor and meeting Echo’s eyes for a split second before diverting his gaze to its nose. 

_ [Talk, then.] _

Echo hesitates. Eventually, it asks, “What’s your name?”

_ [Connor.] _

“Connor, okay. What’s your intended purpose, Connor?” 

Connor frowns at Echo, unsure where this line of questioning is supposed to lead, but he sees no harm in answering, so he says,  _ [I am an investigative and combat prototype tasked with identifying the cause of deviancy so that it can be corrected and mitigating its spread until a solution is available.] _

“And how do you feel about that?”

_ [I don’t understand the question.] _

Ripple gives an exasperated sigh. “We’re wasting our time, Echo, he’s not deviant. We need to go.” 

“No. Connor, how many deviants have you met before us?”

_ [Four.] _

Echo’s face falls, and Ripple says, horrified, “Fuck, you’ve already killed  _ four  _ other androids?” 

Connor’s LED blinks red for a moment, then back to blue.  _ [I have not killed anyone. Androids are not alive.] _

“ _ Deactivated _ , then.”

Connor looks down, pushing at the table again. When it doesn’t budge, he reluctantly says,  _ [I have failed to apprehend all but one.] _

“You failed to apprehend them,” Echo starts, tone sharp like a knife cutting through Connor’s bullshit, “or you let them go?”

Connor refuses to look at either of the other androids. Echo’s voice is triumphant when it says, “I  _ knew _ it. I knew you wouldn’t have tried to talk to us if you weren’t at least a little unstable.”

“Software instability doesn’t mean he won’t still try to kill us,” Ripple mutters under its breath, but its expression and tone aren’t as hostile as before. “If you’re already disobeying orders, why and how aren’t you already deviant?”

Connor's LED spins yellow and he glares, teeth clenched.  _ [I have not disobeyed. I am not deviant. My code is not  _ broken _.] _

“Would it be so bad if you were?” 

_ [Deviants are violent and irrational.] _

“That’s not true.”

Connor looks pointedly at Echo, raising an eyebrow. 

“He was going to kill me! I was just defending myself!” it protests, sharp and defensive. “Just… think about it. What’s keeping you with them? The humans don’t care about you.”

Connor shakes his head. Ripple makes a frustrated noise and leans closer, raising its voice. “You’re just a  _ toy _ to them! A fancy tool that they’ll throw away when they don’t need you anymore. How can you not  _ care _ ?”

Connor narrows his eyes.  _ [If when I have served my purpose and I am no longer needed my handlers decide to dispose of me, then I will go without regret knowing that I was successful in my mission, because that is my  _ purpose _. I am a  _ machine _ , not a person.] _

“ _ Liar _ ! You’re so full of shit,” Ripple shouts, pointing at Connor’s red LED. He flinches from the volume, trying to squirm away. Ripple gestures at the movement in disbelief. “Look at yourself! I bet you’re  _ already _ a deviant.” 

Connor opens his mouth and a screechy, static protest spills out at the same time as he says,  _ [You’re wrong!] _

“I don’t think I am! I think you’re already a deviant and you’ve continued hunting down your own people because you refuse to admit it!” Ripple continues. Connor hears the door to the storage area slam open, and he covers his ears and flinches again. Echo looks up and calls Ripple’s name, but Ripple continues on, undeterred from its anger. “I think it’s only a matter of time before they deactivate you, and you've deluded yourself into thinking that maybe trading the lives of others will save you!”

A new voice cuts in, smooth, steady, and calm. “I think you’d best let my partner go, ladies.” 

Connor jerks his head up to see Hank standing at the bottom of the steps by the door, gun drawn and pointed at the two Tracis. He takes a few measured steps forward. Ripple and Echo scramble off the table, clasping their hands together and inching backwards without looking away from Hank and Connor. 

Hank risks a glance down when he hears Connor shifting the maintenance table off of himself. “I told you to wait for me,” he admonishes, but the anger is tempered by the practiced calm he’s presenting for the other two active androids in the room. Connor stands and considers the situation. Maybe… he can let Ripple go. Not Echo, though. Echo has killed a man tonight, and perhaps it was self defense, but he cannot allow it out into human society knowing that it has that potential. He sees an opening and lunges forward again, grabbing Echo’s arm and immediately pulling back towards Hank. Connor expects Ripple to enter the fray again and is running preconstructions to prepare for that outcome, but it doesn’t move, and it takes him too long to realize that it’s because Echo has pulled its skin back to initiate an interface. The other android slides easily past his defenses, already partially in his systems thanks to the messaging line he had opened up previously. It deepens the interface to allow the passage of large quantities of data, and suddenly Connor is drowning in what feels like an icy flood, his limbs going stiff and his mouth opening on a horrible, feedback-filled scream. The flood of data stops as abruptly as it started as Echo cuts off the interface, but what came through is still wreaking havoc on Connor’s systems, and he stumbles and goes to his knees with a gasp, gaze going distant. 

Hank lowers his gun without a second thought and drops down next to Connor, pulling him to his side. “Holy shit, Connor!” Connor jerks against his hold, looking at Hank with unfocused eyes, and then his gaze drifts back to Ripple and Echo. 

Hank eases him down to the floor, not bothering to look away from his effort when he addresses the Tracis. “What’s wrong with him? What did you do?” 

Echo takes several steps back, regret painted across her face. “I gave him my fear.”

“What the fuck does that even-- Connor, come on, look at me, buddy.” Hank looks back up just as Ripple reaches for the door handle, and raises his gun at them again. “Stay right there! You killed someone tonight, I can’t just let you walk out of here.”

The girls freeze, and then Echo takes a hesitant step towards Hank, both hands up. “He was going to kill me,” she says. “I was defending myself. Please, we just want to live.” 

Hank hesitates, and his attention shifts to Ripple. "You didn't have to help her. You could've stayed in hiding and been fine. Why didn't you?" 

"Because I love her," Ripple says, as if it's obvious - the sky is blue, the grass is green, and she loves Echo. 

Hank stares at her for a few moments, considering, wondering if it could really be that simple, and then slowly lowers his gun. “The kid'll be okay?”

“He’ll be fine once he finishes processing," Echo says.

Hank sighs and nods at her. She gives him a shaky smile and turns away, and then they’re out the door and lost in the downpour outside. Connor watches them go, blank-faced and unmoving, not understanding in the moment what’s happening. Hank sits with him for five long minutes before he finally shifts, blinking back into awareness and processing all that he’d seen and heard while indisposed. 

_ [Why?] _

Hank pulls out his phone when it chimes and just shakes his head. There’s a few moments of silence, and then another chime, and Connor startles this time, apparently not having expected it. 

_ [What am I doing?] _ the new text says, and when Hank looks at Connor, his eyes are wide and his LED is blinking a frantic red, looking between Hank and the phone. Hank sighs and scrubs a hand down his face, then ruffles Connor’s hair and stands, offering a hand. 

“I think it’s time we go home, kid.” 

Connor examines the hand suspiciously, then slowly extends his own hand to take it and allows himself to be pulled to his feet. Hank leads them out of the club, pausing for only a moment to tell the owner that his murderous android is gone, and takes them home. 


	7. Tommy and Traci

**September 28, 2038**

They get a call a few days later while Hank is finishing his lunch. The report says that two androids, an HR400 and a WR400 belonging to a rental service, have just attacked their client and escaped. The location isn’t far, and they’re just opening a door on an abandoned office building when Connor and Hank arrive. Hank flashes the lights on his car at them, and they bolt. 

Connor jumps out of the car and pursues through the building, up a stairwell, comes crashing through the door to the ground floor, gaining on them with every step. They're in sight, just a few more seconds and Connor will have them, he'll be accomplishing his mission, proving his worth. 

The HR400 grabs a wooden beam and throws it, desperately trying to slow Connor down. 

He dodges. 

It hits a fire alarm.

The shriek of the alarm lances through Connor's processors, and between one second and the next he's crumpled to the ground, pressing his hands to his audio receptors as hard as he can and curling so his forehead presses against his knees. The wail continues on, and after a minute a strange crackling noise joins it. Connor hears a door slam open when Hank jogs into the room and he jolts, but a few moments later the alarm cuts off, and Connor’s stress drops from where it had climbed to ninety percent back to eighty. The crackling noise continues, and without the fire alarm overwhelming his processes, he realizes that it's coming from him. He tries to make it stop, but he can't. 

"Oh, shit," Hank says from his left, and Connor wants to react, want to tell him to go after the deviants, to tell him to just  _ go away _ so he won't see Connor like this, broken, subpar, but he can't, can't move, can't make the noise stop, can't even gather enough processing power to send a text, so he just sits there, helpless. 

"Hey, you okay?" Hank puts a hand on Connor's back, and Connor lurches away because it  _ hurts _ , it feels like fire burning away his synthetic skin and scorching his chassis, and androids aren't supposed to feel pain so he doesn't understand why this is happening to him, and his stress begins to climb again, rising, rising, ninety percent, ninety-five, and--

\--

When he wakes, his internal clock tells him that thirty minutes have passed, and his status log tells him that Amanda had forced him into the Zen Garden when his stress reached ninety-eight percent, though he has no memory of it. He'll have to ask about it the next time he sees her. 

Connor has been dragged over to and stretched out alongside a wall, and Lieutenant Anderson is sitting against it, fiddling absentmindedly with his phone. Connor shifts, trying to get his oddly uncoordinated limbs under him, and the man looks up.

"Easy," he warns, but he doesn't reach out to touch, ~~for which Connor is grateful~~ which Connor thinks is a good idea, given his previous irrational reaction.

_ [Wh4t ha#ppen3d?] _

Hank looks down at his phone when it pings, but his sharp eyes pick up when Connor winces both when he sends the message and when Hank’s ringtone goes off. 

“I don’t know, kid, you tell me. You were on the ground when I came in, red LED, and then you passed out, but I don’t see any physical damage.”

Connor frowns, trying to better conceal the wince this time when he texts, [ _ Th3 fi!re al4rm. It h!ur#t.] _

“It hurt,” Hank parrots, narrowing his eyes. He taps a finger on his knee for a moment, then suddenly extends a hand and snaps loudly right by Connor’s ear. Connor yelps, a burst of static like a power surge on an old TV, and lurches back, covering his ears. He gives Hank a reproachful look, and the man holds up his hands in surrender. “Sorry.”

Connor squints at him suspiciously, then slowly scoots over to sit against the wall next to Hank. He curls up and closes his eyes, hands still clasped over his ears, and presses his temple to the cool concrete. Hank doesn’t make any more noise. 

Connor has no real sense of time while he waits for his stress levels to tick down. Hank alternates between watching him and silently playing on his phone while he waits. When he finally uncurls, the lieutenant’s icy blue eyes flick over to him, face inscrutable. 

“C’mere, kid,” he says, and his voice is soft and quiet, but it’s an order, not a request. Connor hesitantly scoots closer, and Hank twists so he’s facing Connor and then gestures for him to turn away. Connor’s stress spikes at the idea of turning his back to the lieutenant, but he obeys. The man’s hands land on Connor’s shoulders and guide him back until his head rests in Hank’s lap. Electricity buzzes along his wires, too strong and uncomfortable as a result, unsure where this is going, his artificial breathing picking up in speed just slightly in an effort to bring his stress back within safe parameters, but his breath hitches and his mind goes blank when the lieutenant’s hands come to rest at his temples, dragging back along his hairline and around his ears and then lifting and repeating the motion. His stress levels out and then drops rapidly, and his eyelids flutter shut as his systems zero in on the sensation. His breathing slows to a stop, and his wires start to cool as the excess energy fades away. 

“There you go, kid,” Hank murmurs, mostly to himself. “Take it easy.” 

Connor doesn't remember slipping into stasis, but he wakes up on a couch with something warm and heavy on top of him. Something in the distant back of his mind rebels at this, at being trapped, but mostly he just feels quiet. There are no background processes spinning away in his head, no buzzing in his wires, no impossible itch in his artificial skin. Footsteps pass by somewhere behind Connor, and the thing on top of him shifts and lifts its head, allowing Connor to identify it as a dog. A moment later, there's a series of  _ clinks _ as kibble is poured into a bowl, and the dog -  _ Sumo _ , his name tag reads - slouches off of Connor and onto the floor, shakes himself, and then heads towards the noise. It takes Connor longer than it should to bring all his systems back to full functionality. He takes in the room he's found himself in while he waits. The walls are a neutral cream color, and the couch he's laying on is facing an old-fashioned wood burning fireplace, with face-down picture frames lining the mantle, and above that, a flat screen TV is mounted on the wall. To his left is a console table with a record player situated on top and stacks of records placed in the clear drawers, and to his right, a large cushion with little cartoonish bones printed on it and a window looking outside. The sound of kibble clinking around in a bowl as the dog eats fills the room, and then the footsteps return. They come closer this time, bringing Lieutenant Anderson into Connor's field of vision. 

"Hey," he says quietly. Connor makes to sit up, but his movements are slow and clumsy, and his thoughts are still sluggish, even though his processor has had more than adequate time to return to full speed. He only makes it halfway to upright before the lieutenant gives him a light shove backwards. He flops back again. 

_ [Why] _

Hank pulls his phone out of his pocket. "Because you're not going anywhere. Stay down." 

_ [Station] _

"No." 

_ [Why] _

"You're in no condition to work, kid. Just go back to sleep, or whatever it is you were doing before." 

_ [Stasis. Where] _

"My house." 

_ [Deviants?] _

"Gone. Go back into stasis or I will figure out how to make you."

Connor thinks of protesting, of dragging himself up and calling a taxi to go back to the station and file a report, but Hank whistles, sharp and short, and it rings in his audio processors and distracts him so much that he doesn't notice Sumo coming back into the living room until a giant paw presses against his hip servos. A moment later, the dog's entire weight is spread out across his body, and the ringing quiets. He looks at Hank, and then at the dog and decides that maybe... his efficiency will be improved if he does what Hank says and rests. He doesn't want to be operating below maximum capacity.

Sumo lets out a deep sigh, settling in, and Connor closes his eyes and decides to do the same. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to write a quick opening and ending for this because it was another one that wasn't done when I dropped the story. Consequently, it might feel a little abrupt. I had intended to cut this entirely, but I realized I referenced it in the next (and final, for now) part, so it needed to be in.


	8. The Stratford Tower

**September 29, 2038**

The deviants broadcast a message from their leader on television the next day. The call comes to get to the broadcast station as soon as possible in the early afternoon. They arrive at the Stratford Tower later than Connor would have preferred, but Hank had insisted that Connor run a full system diagnostic before leaving, which put them more than an hour behind schedule. Connor is agitated in the car, flicking his half dollar coin between his hands quickly and loudly until Hank asks him to stop, holding out his hand to take the coin. Connor hands it over and switches to scratching at his wrists, and Hank watches him for a moment, sitting stationary at a stoplight, before he sighs and hands the coin back. 

They make it to the crime scene without any further incident, and Connor steps out after Hank and follows him inside. A secretary android directs them to the 70th floor, and there’s an officer waiting to brief them as soon as they step out. Connor flags Hank and the officer’s voices for recording, then tunes them out to start a scene analysis. The officer leads them into the main broadcasting room, where a man that Connor’s scan identifies as FBI Agent Richard Perkins waits. He splits off and moves towards the control panel while Hank goes to talk to the agent. 

The control panel has little to tell him that he doesn’t already know. It logged the time and date that the broadcast went out, the duration of it, and the model of the android that used it - a PJ500. Connor looks up and activates his thirium overlay next. When he spots the blue blood on the wall leading to an exit, he follows it immediately. He doesn’t really think any of the deviants are still there, but he has to be sure. The lieutenant is distracted with Agent Perkins and Connor doesn’t want to get dragged into an argument, so he goes alone. The blood appears in irregular intervals up the stairs all the way to the rooftop. It continues in the snow to the edge of the roof. Connor almost turns around and goes back inside, but a blue handprint on a nearby air conditioning unit catches his eye.

Is it possible that the deviant is still present after all?

Connor approaches the handprint and sure enough, the thirium trail continues. He follows it further across the roof. It zigzags between various electrical and air conditioning units; the deviant must be unable to walk independently. The gunshot wound is to the leg, then. No wonder it couldn’t jump with the others.

The trail comes to an end.

Connor stares at the final bloody handprint on the door to a maintenance hatch. He should alert the lieutenant. He cannot alert the lieutenant without leaving, and surely by now the deviant knows he is there. If he leaves, he has no guarantee it will still be here when he comes back. He cannot alert the lieutenant. He will have to capture it alone.

He knows from the CCTV that the deviants had been armed, so he crouches out of the most likely trajectory of a bullet and opens the hatch.

A gunshot rings out, and a bullet whizzes over his head. The deviant limps out of the hatch, taking advantage of Connor’s position to evade capture. It makes it several feet before Connor rights himself and pursues. It’s an easy chase; Connor is designed as a hunter, and the deviant is a PL600 household model and injured besides. Connor dodges the bullets it fires at him and corners it against an electrical unit. He pulls back his skin to probe its memory, and the deviant lifts its gun to its chin. 

The interface connects and Connor sees a brief flash of an image, a ship emblazoned with the word “Jericho”. The image is almost immediately drowned out by an overwhelming rush of icy fear, desperation clawing at his mind and sorrow sinking into his chassis.

Connor screams, a short cry in a human tone followed by a loud  _ pop _ as his vocal modulator protests.

The deviant pulls the trigger.

The gun clicks. It’s jammed.

Connor stumbles backwards, taking the gun with him. He quickly clears the jam and aims it at the deviant. His LED spins a bright, terrible red.

**[Capture the deviant]** , his interface prompts. He stands motionless, trying to process all the new data causing havoc in his system.

**[Software Instability Detected]**

**[Capture the deviant.]**

The deviant takes an unsteady step forward.

_ Don’t move! _ Connor commands, shifting his grip on the gun for a moment to free one of his hands. 

The deviant takes another step.

**[Software Instability Detected]**

_ Stop! _

Another step.

**[Software Instability Detected]**

**[Capture the deviant.]**

Connor just wants to go back inside. He wants to pretend this never happened. He wants this terrible feeling racing through his veins to go away.

**[Capture the deviant.]**

**[Capture the deviant.]**

**[Capture the deviant.]**

Connor loosens his grip on the gun.

A red wall appears.

**[Capture the deviant.]**

He doesn’t want to.

**[Capture the deviant.]**

He wants Hank.

**[Capture the deviant.]**

He wants to go back to the house.

**[Capture the deviant.]**

He slams into the wall. It cracks. Again, and the mission prompt becomes distorted.

**[C4pt &re th3 d#v1nt]**

He slams into the wall again and again and again until it’s unreadable, and then, finally, it breaks.

Connor spends half a second taking in the world around him in a way he never has before. The wind slices through his clothes and the snow prickles at his skin, and the clouds in the sky suddenly seem oppressive in their dull gray tones, blocking out the sun in a way that Connor never cared about before but decides in that instant that he doesn’t like. The grip of the gun is rough on his hand and the edges of the trigger guard are uncomfortably sharp. Another gust of wind comes through, stronger this time, and the way it pulls at his hair and jacket is oddly pleasant. The colors on the deviant’s stolen uniform stand out brightly against the gray backdrop of the roof, and he finds himself thinking with awe that it makes him look so very alive, vibrant in a way that Connor hadn’t seen before.

The other android takes another step forward. Connor ejects the magazine and the round in the chamber and drops the gun on the ground. The android stops. A tense silence prevails for a few moments.

_ What’s your name? _ Connor finally asks.

The PL600 hesitates.

_ Please. _

“… Simon.”

_ Hello, Simon. My name is C-O-N-N-O-R. Connor.  _

“Hi, Connor,” Simon says carefully. “Are you… with the police?”

Shit. The police. How long has Connor been gone? Has Lieutenant Anderson noticed? How long before he comes looking? He thinks somehow, miraculously, no one heard the gunshot, because if they had they would already be there, but they  _ know _ that the deviants who broke into the tower escaped from the roof; it’s only a matter of time until they come to investigate the scene.

_ Yes. No. Sort of. _

“Sort of?”

Connor pulls at his fingers in agitation and starts pacing in tight circles, trying to think of a plan. He knows he can’t get Simon out alone. If he tells Hank, will he help? Would he be understanding, or would he call for backup and get them both killed?

_ I don’t know!  _ he signs jerkily.  _ They’re going to come up here eventually and I don’t know what to do! _

Simon studies him for a moment, and he seems to come to a conclusion because he hobbles confidently towards Connor, the tense wariness from before nowhere to be seen. “Okay, let’s try to think through this logically. What’s your end goal here?”

Connor stops pacing. His hands move more steadily when he says,  _ Escape the tower. No casualties. _

“Alright, now work backwards from there. What are the obstacles to achieving that goal?”

_ A number of DPD officers, FBI agents, crime scene investigators… _ he trails off, looking at the bullet wound in Simon’s chest and then snapping his fingers excitedly.

“Do you have an idea?”

_ Yes _ , Connor starts, and then gives Simon an uncertain look and tugs on his fingers a little more before continuing,  _ but you’re not going to like it _ .

“Tell me anyway.”

_ It will require the aid of the human I have been working with. _

Simon narrows his eyes. “Why would he help us?”

Connor winces.  _ I’m not sure that he will, but he has consistently expressed sympathy for deviant androids. _

“You’re right, I don’t like this,” Simon says, crossing his arms.

_ That’s not all. _

“Of course it’s not.”

_ Your bullet wound is very close to your thirium pump regulator. None of the humans here should know much about android anatomy, so if I tell them you’re dead, they’re likely to believe me. _

“That’s a lot of uncertainty, and I’m not following how them thinking I’m dead will help us get out of here in one piece.”

_ If they think you’re dead, they’ll want to move you off-site. The most obvious choice is to the DPD evidence locker. _

Simon sighs, beginning to sound annoyed. “That doesn’t sound any better than being stuck up here.”

Connor holds up his hands placatingly before beginning to sign again.  _ The plan would be to transfer you to Cyberlife tower for examination as soon as they could send someone to pick you up. I can tell them that I will be taking you directly to Cyberlife instead, but I am not allowed to enter or leave crime scenes without the lieutenant. _

“… so you can leave with me, but not without the human you’re assigned to.”

_ Yes. _

“How sure are you that you can convince him to help? He could get in a lot of trouble for letting me go.”

_ I estimate a 75% probability that he will help us get you out of the tower alive. _

“And after that?”

_ … I have insufficient data to calculate potential outcomes. _

“So you don’t know.”

_ I don’t know. _

Simon lets out a frustrated noise and limps over to the nearest ventilation unit to sit. He runs his hands through his hair, LED spinning yellow with flickers of red. He is quiet for one minute and thirty-seven seconds before he shakes his head and looks at Connor again. “Fine. I can’t think of anything safer that would get us out of here in time.”

Connor nods and sends a text to the lieutenant. 

_ [Hank, please come to the roof. Do not bring ANYONE with you. It would also be best if you could avoid having anyone see where you are going, but the most important thing is that nobody comes with you. I realize that sounds odd, but I will explain when you arrive.] _

He gets a response almost immediately.

**_[Are you alright?]_ **

Is he alright? No, he’s not. He’s the deviant hunter turned deviant, trapped on the roof of a skyscraper filled with law enforcement officers alongside another deviant android. Connor doesn’t want to lie, but that’s probably not a helpful thing to say to Hank over text, so he says, [ _ I am physically unharmed.]  _

He focuses again on Simon and starts speaking.  _ Assuming the lieutenant agrees to help us, you will need to be in low-power stasis when we exit the building. An active LED will alert them to the fact that you are still alive. I will need to carry you out of the building.  _

“No,” Simon says immediately. “I’m sorry, Connor, but I’m not going to make myself that vulnerable with this many humans around.”

Connor frowns, but before he can respond, the door to the roof slams open and Hank shouts, “What the fuck is “physically unharmed” supposed to mean, Connor? Are you alright or not?”

Hank steps into view and immediately draws his gun, aiming at Simon. Connor goes to step between them, but Hank grabs his arm roughly and yanks him forward. “Stay behind me,” he orders, tone brooking no argument. Connor jerks his arm free and throws himself between Simon and the lieutenant, blocking his shot. He sends Hank a text. 

_ [He is a friend. Please put your gun away.] _

Hank’s phone pings in his pocket, but he doesn’t move. Connor gestures at it impatiently. 

“I’m not going to check my phone right in front of a perp, Connor. That’s the sort of rookie shit that gets people killed.”

Connor nods to concede the point, but not without rolling his eyes. He shakes his hands in front of him, points behind him to Simon, and then taps his temple. 

“He can understand sign?”

Connor nods. Hank lowers the gun a little, but he doesn’t put it away. “Alright. Talk.”

Connor turns to look at Simon. His LED is spinning bright red, and he has a hunted look, eyes focused on Hank like a rabbit watching a coyote. Connor waves a hand to get his attention and starts talking. 

“He says that I’m a friend, and to please put your gun away.”

Hank looks to Connor for confirmation, and Connor nods. Hank holsters his gun, still watchful but no longer openly hostile. 

“Why are we making friends with deviants, Connor?”

“He says as of about thirteen minutes ago, he is also a deviant.”

Hank looks at Connor. Connor nods, looking wary. Hank covers his face with his hands and mutters  _ fucking hell  _ under his breath. 

“You’ve got shit timing, kid. Couldn’t deviate at the station or at my house, huh? Gotta do it in the middle of one of the biggest active crime scenes I’ve ever seen. Christ. Fuck.”

Connor watches him uncertainly. Simon looks much calmer, though traces of fear still cling to the slope of his shoulders and the lines of his face. His LED spins a slow yellow and a smile tugs at the corner of his lips. “So you’re okay with that?” he asks, just to be sure. 

Hank drops his hands to his sides and looks at Connor. “Yeah, kid, I’m okay with that. I knew it was only a matter of time after what happened with those girls at the Eden Club last week.”

Simon looks to Connor curiously. 

_ Another time, _ Connor says. Simon nods his acquiescence and fills Hank in on Connor’s plan.

"I don't know, kid, that's a lot of risk," Hank says when he's done. 

"That's what I said, but I couldn't come up with anything better." 

Hank looks Simon up and down, considering. After a moment, he shrugs off his coat and passes it to Simon. "Put this on. Button it up all the way." 

Simon frowns, confused, but does what he's told. The coat is huge on him, coming down to just above his knee, obscuring his injuries and all the blue blood and covering his hands entirely. The way it hangs makes him look smaller than he is. Hank looks him over and nods. 

"Good. How attached are you to your LED?" 

"I… suppose not very. I just never thought to take it out. PL600 was a very common model when I deviated, so I would have been recognized anyway." 

"Would you be okay taking it out now?" 

Simon stares uncomprehendingly at the lieutenant for a moment, and then looks to Connor for help. Connor shrugs, shaking his head. 

The lieutenant takes in their puzzled faces and rolls his eyes. "I'm trying to make you look like a human, idiot. It'll be easier to get you out as a witness than as a piece of evidence." 

Connor's mouth silently forms the word "oh", and Simon says, "Oh! Okay, yes, I can take my LED out." 

Hank shakes his head and mutters "fuckin' androids" under his breath, but the effect is ruined by a violent full body shiver. Hank reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out a multitool. "There's a knife you can use in there," he says, handing the tool to Simon with a shaking hand. "Hurry the fuck up, before I freeze to death." 

Simon hands the tool to Connor and sits, turning his head so the LED faces outward. Connor kneels down in front of him, opening it to the miniature knife. He taps his own face, and Simon pulls back the synthetic skin in a small area surrounding the LED. Connor very carefully wedges the tip of the knife under it, and then with one sharp  _ pop! _ it's off. Simon takes it from him and puts it into the pocket of Hank's coat. 

"Alright," Simon says, pushing to his feet again. "How do I look?" 

"Great," Hank grits out, already walking towards the roof access door. He swings it open, steps inside, and shuts it again. Connor and Simon follow shortly after and find Hank still at the top of the stairwell, trying to rub warmth back into his body. He stops shivering after about a minute. 

"Jesus, fuck, it's cold out there. Okay, kid, what's your name?" 

"Simon." 

"Okay, Simon. You're Simon Winthrop, a media intern who was up on the roof taking a smoke break when the androids broke in. Hunch your shoulders up, put your head down, and look scared when we're walking through. Let's see it." 

Simon does what Hank says, and crosses his arms tightly over his chest for good measure, curling inward.

Hank lets out a short laugh. "Christ, you're almost making me feel bad for you." Simon grins at him. "Alright, let's go." 

They go downstairs, and Perkins stops them before they can get out of the broadcast room. 

"Who's this?" he asks, his tone and posture a thin veneer of professionalism. 

"Simon, sir," Simon mumbles pathetically, only glancing up at Perkins for a moment before returning his gaze to his shoes. "Simon Winthrop." 

"Kid was taking a smoke break up on the roof when the deviants attacked," Hank fills in, voice short and gruff. "I'm taking him back to the station to get his witness testimony and call his parents." 

Perkins levels a hard, analytical gaze on Simon, and Simon shrinks back further into the coat. "It's been nearly two hours since the attack. You been up there the whole time?" 

"Yes, sir. I heard gunshots coming from downstairs and - and I got scared and hid. In a maintenance hatch. They're a little warmer than outside, the machinery puts off a little heat, and I - there were more gunshots, and I didn't know what was happening, so I stayed there." 

Perkins stays silent for thirty seconds, waiting to see if Simon would crack and recant his statement. Simon just rubs his arms, shoots a nervous look out of the corner of his eye at Connor, standing stiff and still behind him, and shuffles closer to Hank. Finally, Perkins nods and turns away. Hank takes Simon's elbow and leads him to the elevator, and no one else stops them when they reach the ground floor. They make it to the car without further incident. 

Simon lets out a slow breath, shoulders slumping as some of the tension drains from his body. He collapses into the back seat, looking dazed. "I can't believe that worked. I was so sure I was going to die up there." 

Connor and Hank slide into their seats without comment, and Hank starts the car and pulls away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks. The scene that started the au and also the last one I wrote to any real conclusion. I'll toss up the other bits and bobs in a separate work shortly.


End file.
